Mistress

Chapter 86

I don’t know what’s Russian for I found him! I found him! but whatever it is, I’m pretty sure that’s what this guy is screaming into his radio.

I start pedaling from a dead stop, following along Dupont Circle, on the run like Matt Damon in one of the Bourne movies, except he had a motorcycle. The guy is tracking me, staying on the park’s inner sidewalk but moving around its perimeter to see where I’m going to turn off. I pump my legs with every ounce of power I can muster, weaving between cars and drawing some objections from angry horns. I take the right on the roundabout at 19th Street and look back over my shoulder. The guy sees me, and he’s shouting into his radio and pointing in my direction, too.

I put my head down and pump those legs, maneuvering around a giant Pepsi truck and screaming at a couple crossing the street to get out of my way. Then I hear some shouting behind me and the sound of a car engine in full throttle. I glance behind me and see a black SUV closing the gap quickly. I have a head start, but I’m going maybe twenty miles an hour and the SUV’s doing about fifty and counting. This is not a fair fight. They have a car and automatic weapons. I have a bicycle and a winning personality.

In ten seconds, tops, they’ll reach me, and they’ll shoot me full of holes.

Matt Damon would figure out something. He’d ride the bicycle backward or jump in the car with the bad guys.

But I have a trick or two, a couple of advantages. One, I know this town better than they do.

I skid into a hard right turn and head down Sunderland Place, a narrow street with cars parked on both sides and, helpfully, a UPS truck unloading near the intersection with 19th. An oncoming Mercedes honks its horn and I veer to my right and hop up onto the sidewalk just as I hear the black SUV’s tires skid forcefully at the intersection of 19th and Sunderland behind me. I’m pedaling like crazy and blowing out air and listening, listening, as the SUV guns forward again but then meets a serious horn objection from the driver of the Mercedes, who is probably wondering why this SUV is traveling west down a one-way eastbound street.

That’s advantage number two: my bike can go places their car can’t.

The extended horn tells me the Mercedes driver isn’t planning on putting his car in reverse, not when he’s the one going in the right direction on the one-way street and there’s not enough room for the SUV to get around it. I keep my head down low, but I doubt they’ll try to shoot at me from this far away. I sneak a look back and see the SUV whip backward onto 19th and then head south, out of my view.

So I’m totally safe, right? Like in the slasher flicks when the woman hears the noise upstairs but checks every room and doesn’t find anyone, then relaxes and thinks, I guess it was nothing! only to find the man in the hockey mask with the ice pick standing behind her.

The Russians, speeding south on 19th, are almost certain to turn right on N Street and take it over to 20th and make another right, so they can head back up north to look for me. It won’t take them long…

I hit 20th, part of a three-way intersection with New Hampshire Avenue, a street that cuts diagonally across. I maneuver through the intersection, drawing some car horns, and take the hard left on New Hampshire as I hear braking and squealing tires to my left. The Russians’ SUV is swerving around other cars, almost at the three-way intersection. They see me. I know they see me.

In a close call, I choose The Departed over Good Will Hunting, but both are top five Matt Damon movies okay stop, Ben-

I hop onto the sidewalk on New Hampshire, my head down, and pedal with everything I have. Chaos behind me at the three-way intersection, horns honking, people shouting, metal crunching. New Hampshire is another one-way street, so once more, the Russians will have to drive the wrong way down a one-way street to catch me. There’s a lot of traffic passing me and I hope it poses enough of an obstacle that it buys me some time.

Because now I have an idea. Matt Damon would think this is cool.

I pass Firefly on the right. I went there once with Diana, blue-cheese dates and the mini pot roast, she talked the waiter into bringing a couple of beer-battered pickles, even though neither of us ordered the burger, Diana could do things like that-

Focus, Ben.

I have a prepaid phone in my pocket and I pull it out with some difficulty, and the earpiece is still attached and I shove it into my ear and dial furiously, a phone call that might save my life-

Rat-a-tat-tat and they’re shooting at me, and the building behind me absorbs the gunfire, bullets hitting brick, and dammit ANSWER THE PHONE, ANSWER-

I can hear them behind me, the SUV’s engine gunning southwest toward me, there’s no way I can outrace them, but if I can just buy some time, if I can just get to Ward Place-

The Informant! showed Damon’s growth as an actor-

The phone picks up and I shout into my earpiece, completely out of breath, but I repeat the same words over and over again, Twenty-Second, southbound-

And then two magical words that will wake them up, two radioactive words I shout over and over and over-

A woman is racing with her stroller to get out of the line of fire and I narrowly avoid her and pedal as hard as my legs can go, but they’re coming up behind me, I can hear them, they’re maneuvering around oncoming traffic and everyone has dived to the pavement for cover and I hear more gunfire, bullets pelting a parked FedEx truck, thump-thump-thump, and then I skid into a right turn at Ward Place, a tiny, narrow street-

Ward, don’t you think you were a little hard on the Beaver last night?

– and I pump-pump-pump those legs, and moments later, the SUV brakes hard and skids near that turn, and I forgot all about The Talented Mr. Ripley-

Ward Place is another one-way street, eastbound, which means once again they’ll have to travel against oncoming traffic. But there isn’t any traffic on Ward Place.

Other than their desire to follow the rules of the road and maintain a spotless driving record, the Russians have nothing stopping them from speeding down this street and closing the gap in a matter of seconds.